<nettime> North and South

[Pit Schultz <pit@klubradio.de>]

with the media-prothesis of the internet, *we* are able to be there
on the streets of palestine, in jerusalem, take the side of the father
who lost his son by israeli bulletts or the soldier who defends a
synagoge against a stonethroughing mob. it's a video game where you can
choose which kind of victim you like to play, with which kind of misery you
like to identify yourself. meanwhile, not only in terms of cybergeography
*we* stay in the north, in the cold distance of obvervation. what will
happen? will the price of the oil go up or down? will chip production
be still stable? cyberpoets say: there is not enough arabia in cyberland,
no sun bleeded deserts, not enough 1000 and one night. nevertheless the
web is full of orientalism, info ornament and oral history of the e-cafe
places, where mostly men talk to each other. it is also the jewish
caballah and the christian disembodiment. but in the end, the net
is not a sensual telescope to come nearer to the *real*, break through
the symbolic, and overcome the imaginary. media doesn't convert
humans to the better but adds new types of peversion. the heros of the
true media activist, his crusade for humanity or the embracement of
nationalist movements won't make your poor screen identity more enlighted
by the pure passions or war. we are bystanders, voyeurs, profiteurs,
tricksters, collaborateurs, connaisseurs but most of all hardcore
media gamers eager to get a kick out of it.

- ok for some, it might be 'their' people fighting there, and those we
secretly admire, for their purity, their groundedness, their community
and passion. but then again, we know, that this fate is what makes
them 'lower', part of another time zone, more dependent on place, race,
gender, less flexible, and less cold hearted to be able to end up as
the true survivors in the tactical media game. this mirror which always
reassures you with every conflict that *we* are save, normal, and
superiour but seriously lacking something. -

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